Reid Van Eck
With this year marking the 30th running of the prestigious event at the ultra-fast ½-mile, 42 drivers signed in for competition as the program got underway with qualifying as Dollansky was the first car to time in and stopped the clock at 13.411 seconds, 7th fastest. Twenty-four cars inverted into six heats then put the MobileStar #7 inside row two of heat one. With only the top-three transferring directly into the main event, Dollansky was on the outside looking in taking the checkered flag one spot short in 4th.
Not having to run the B-Main by virtue of his qualifying time, the Aggressive Hydraulics Maxim lined up outside row ten on the starting grid of the 40-lap Kings Royal A-Main. Following a red flag on lap 16, ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ used a great restart to advance four positions and then two additional spots to thirteenth before another red on lap 25. Following a yellow on the ensuing restart, the Elk River, Minnesota native battled with Tim Shaffer and Daryn Pittman in the final fifteen circuits before taking the checkered flag just outside the top-ten in 12th.
“We lacked overall speed but found out a couple issues that were hindering us but didn’t get that corrected until feature time,” commented the driver of the Eaton’s Aeroquip Performance Products backed sprinter. “It hurt us in qualifying and the heat race but did improve for the feature. Given where we started we were able to advance and get up there but not as far as we would have liked. We know what we had plaguing us and we’ve got that corrected going forward and we will now go try win the Silver Cup.”
Up next, the Eyecon Trail Cameras #7 team travels to Lernerville Speedway tomorrow, July 16th, for the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup Twin 30’s.